Inside Out: Joy and Fear's version
by Nairobi-Harper
Summary: We all know what happened in 'Inside Out,' but what if Fear had been the one Joy dragged along instead? What if Joy had been bottling up Fear as opposed to Sadness?
1. Chapter 1

Author's note: This story is based off one of the earlier drafts for 'Inside Out,' in which apparently, Joy and Fear would have been the two lost in Riley's mind. While I do strongly agree, that Sadness was a better choice for the film, since I found out about this fact, I have been wondering how things would have gone if Joy bottled up Fear instead, and since I've known about this site for a few years now, that led to this story. This is officially my second Inside Out story, and I hope that you enjoy it. If you've been a reader of my stories for a few months now, which is true for most of my friends, then you might be confused as to why a Roman numeral technically starts off the story. Well, at my decision, it is my new style for Inside out stories, though I'll use the same style for my stories from other fandoms. Thank you for reading this author's note and story, now, since I'm sure that you've been waiting, let's go on!

I

At first, there was nothing but darkness.

It was around this time when a glowing, yellow, emotion stepped out. She didn't know where she had come from, or what this place was.

 _Where am I? What is this place?_

She looked around in amazement, still a bit confused as to why she was there, and what she was supposed to do. Stepping into a room and using her glow as a flashlight of some sort, she continued to glance around, confused though pleased.

It was then that she saw the controls; simple they were, though to her, considering that she hadn't seen much before these controls, she found it to be the most fascinating thing that she had even seen. Well, that is before she had looked up at the screen above her.

 _Wow. This is all just so amazing._

Right she was. Happy though thoroughly conflicted at what to do, she pressed a button that she saw on the controls, and what happened next surprised her. It was at this moment, that she could've sworn she heard a giggle, or at least a similar sound, from the child. It pleased the emotion to see what she could do.

 _I made her make that adorable noise. That was all me, and just me._

For another moment, she just stared up at the screen, a huge smile planted on her face.

"Riley," a man's voice said happily. "Whoa. Look at you. Aren't you a little bundle of joy?"

 _Joy. My name must be Joy. I'm Joy. And this, this must be Riley. She makes the most adoring sounds._

Not long after she had witnessed this, something small, yellow, and round came rolling in. Hearing this, she turned around and saw the ball-like shape wandering down up to a place that Joy didn't know of yet. Curious about this, she walked over to it and picked up. Looking at it, she saw the memory of little Riley's parents showing their happiness at having a baby girl.

"Whoa," Joy mumbled, flabbergasted by this.

She then put this memory down and allowed it to continue rolling, not taking a single glance away from it. It was then that she decided these things, whatever they were, were worth protecting, because they were so astonishing. She continued to watch as the memory rolled up.

 _Whatever this is is amazing. I've got to make more of these._

For a second, she stood and admired everything around her, and just how amazing everything was. This was her home, and she already liked it.

Wanting to make more memories as she had promised herself, she pressed the button again, just to hear the baby giggle. Hearing this made Joy feel all giddy inside, as if when she made a memory, she made another baby. That was how good she felt whenever she made Riley giggle.

 _This is amazing. It'll be just Riley and me forever._

It was then that, while admiring the screen, she noticed that Riley was beginning to act up a little. What she eventually heard were the exact opposite of the giggles she had heard when _she_ pressed a button; no, instead she saw Riley begin to fuss.

 _Wha – what's happening? This can't be good! Riley's supposed to make that cute sound, not make whatever sound she's making right now! I have to fix this!_

Once Riley began screaming, though not as loud as she would have if she were angry, this was when Joy felt that she should take over the controls. She quickly looked over to see what the matter was, and instead of this possibly being a malfunction like she had hoped, she instead saw a tall, purple, emotion with one hair. With great fear, he was pushing the button, closing his eyes tightly.

 _Who is this? What are they doing here? They're ruining everything! Now Riley's being a loud mess instead of a bundle of joy, like that man said!_

Joy had to do everything in her system to be nice to this emotion, with her joyous thoughts stopping her from scowling, though she would've liked to. Having a feeling that this thing would've introduce himself, she decided to take the first step.

"Umm, excuse me, but who are you?" Joy asked, barely being able to stand hearing Riley – _her_ Riley – scream anymore.

At this, the taller emotion screamed.

"Whups, sorry, didn't mean to scare ya there."

"I-I'm Fear," he told her. "W-Who are you? Are you evil?"

"Oh, well, hello, Fear, I'm Joy," Joy said, sounding unsure of herself as the emotion went back to closing his eyes, though still pressing the button. "And I'm pretty sure that I'm not evil, since I like happiness and, err, fun."

Despite attempting to not make it so oblivious, Joy attempted to push the emotion away from the controls, preferring to hear Riley happy again, as opposed to as loud and fearful as he was making her.

"So… can I just, if you could…"

She tried to make herself known, though Fear didn't listen, allowing his fear to take over, and continuing to click the button.

"I don't know, let me fix that…"

Eventually, she had to make herself known, softly nudging the emotion aside, and getting back to the controls.

"Thanks."

Instead of responding with a proper 'you're welcome,' the other emotion cowered in fear.

"Augh!" Fear screamed. "You just touched me!"

"So?" Joy asked, smiling and practically ignoring Fear's complaints as she repeatedly pushed the button.

"What if you're sick?" Fear asked.

"Well, I'm pretty sure that up here, we don't get sick, so you don't have to worry so much, Fear," Joy told him, continuing to ignore him after saying this.

"But what if they change the rules!" Fear stammered on. "Then you might get sick and your touch might've gotten me sick and" –

"Calm down, Fear, I'm pretty sure that we don't have rules, either, and even if we did, they won't be mean enough to do that," Joy assured him.

This did calm the emotion down, though to Joy's chagrin, he only found even more things to fuss and complain about. While she didn't voice her opinions to avoid hurting Fear's feelings, she knew deep, deep, down that she probably wasn't going to like him.

 _Geez, can he even calm down for just a second? I mean, sure his name is Fear, so it's kind of expected, but does he have to be so fearful of everything? Does he have to be so fearful of me? I didn't even do anything to him, and yet he wants to know if I'm sick or not. I'm going to have to do everything in my power to make sure that Riley's happy, and not as fearful as he wants her to be. He'll just ruin her life._

Once again looking up at the screen as the only emotion currently with her ran around, screaming like a lunatic, Joy made a vow to both herself and Riley, the baby girl that she would apparently be taking care of.

 _Riley, no matter what happens, or whoever else comes in after this guy, Fear, I will always make sure that you're happy. That's my promise, and I will always keep this promise._

Little did the beaming emotion know, eleven years later, keeping this promise would be much, much, harder.

 **I hope that you enjoyed the first chapter here. I hope that everyone was in character. I understand how Joy might seem a bit out of character, but you have to admit that at some points in the film, she was pretty obnoxious and rude, but it's a bit more subtle. Don't you remember when she didn't deny that Sadness was annoying? That in itself was pretty rude, and I mean, she had a freaking 'Sadness' circle, basically bottling up any sadness that Riley should've felt for the remainder of the film. Anyway, I don't want to spoil the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it, but really, if you haven't, go see it. The movie is pure awesomeness, sadness, and just… it's amazing. In fact, I've never said this before, but along with the Toy Story trilogy, it's one of my favorite Pixar movies, and if Toy Story didn't exist, it'd definitely be my absolute favorite Pixar movie. By the way, if you prefer stories with cover art, I hope to be getting cover art for this story soon. Anyway, toddles, and I hope you have a good Thursday. Since I don't really have to do much today, aside from update a few stories and sleep for the remaining day, I know I will.**


	2. Chapter 2

Authors note: Seven reviews, ten favorites, and twelve follows. Thank you so much guys! As my second Inside out fic here, I really appreciate all the support that this story and idea is getting. It really keeps me going. I apologize for updating this story five days after the upload, though I technically began working on this chapter two days ago. I'll be updating a few of my stories today, and this happens to be the first one, at eleven am this morning. This is pretty much just an alternate version of the actual movie, but trusts me, I'm not going to technically copy everything, because since Fear is in Sadness' place, a few things need to be different, such as the ending, of course. For those of you asking if Fear and Joy will be paired together as an actual couple, I'm not sure yet. They will, of course, be paired together for an adventure, as Joy and Sadness were in the original movie, but still not too sure on the couple's thing.

Warning: This chapter may contain spoilers if you have not seen the actual movie.

Disclaimer: I do not own the movie 'Inside Out,' or any of its characters. They belong to Disney/Pixar, and I am simply a fan of the movie.

II

It seemed that that was only the beginning.

Around a year or two after Joy and Fear's arrivals, they, along with a newer emotion, Sadness, were watching Riley play in her backyard as she followed her imaginary friend, Bing Bong. While Joy was happy about this and continuously pressing buttons to make Riley giggle, Fear, for once, looked relieved about the situation, while Sadness stood there, interested in what was going on.

 _Well, at neither of them are making negative comments, because Team Happy is true to life!_

In fact, Fear seemed the closest to happy that Joy had seen him in a while, and this was something that she liked.

 _He's not freaking out right now. That's good. No, that's great!_

If Joy herself weren't so engrossed in the fun that Riley was having, she probably would've congratulated Fear for this.

"Y'know, this is going better than I thought it would," Fear admitted.

Joy beamed after hearing this.

 _Finally, maybe, after these first two years, my positivity has finally shined on Fear, and maybe even Sadness!_

Looking away from the controls as she handled them, Joy smiled at both Fear and Sadness.

"That's right, Fear, we're Team Happy," Joy stated. "Right, Sadness?"

The shorter emotion standing next to her didn't respond, because Fear screamed a few seconds after Joy asked Sadness this.

"Oh no!" Fear screamed, staring at the screen with horror.

Joy looked back at the screen and saw that they had tripped. She immediately felt regret and guilt, although being the optimist she was, pushed those feelings away.

"Oh, well, it doesn't even hurt that much," Joy said, forcing a smile.

"How could you smile in a situation like this!?" Fear yelled.

Sadness, now crying herself because they were injured, did her work, and made it so that Riley cried for their parents.

While Joy never liked this sound, she did understand that it helped their parents understand what Riley needed. On instinct, her parents ran over to her, cuddling her and telling her that it was okay, and they'd clean her bruise up. They all calmed down after seeing this, although Fear _did_ explain how they could've avoided such an accident. Joy, however, was lost in her own state of mind, and didn't listen.

 _Sadness helps so that mom and dad know what we need whenever we're hurt, or just what we need overall._

Of course, it wasn't long after they were cleaned up that Joy was back at it again, ignoring any guilt she felt.

"And, we're back at it!" Joy exclaimed, pressing the button with glee as Riley continued to have fun, though this time with her toys as she sat in her crib.

Headquarters continued to increase from there. The next emotion to come in was Disgust, a green female emotion who had mastered sarcasm. Despite this, Joy usually allowed her at the controls, since she understood that Disgust helped to keep Riley from being poisoned both physically and socially. At this point, Riley had recently celebrated her second birthday, and was at the table with her parents. The emotions looked on in curiosity as they saw that Riley's father was about to feed her something.

"This will be interesting," Joy said, with a half-smile.

"What is it?" Sadness mumbled with interest.

Fear agreed with them, looking at the apparent food with curiosity. In less than a minute, the newest emotion, Disgust, walked in with a scowl on her face after having smelled this food.

"Okay, caution, there is a dangerous smell in here, people," Disgust said, before looking up at the screen. "Hold on, what is that?"

She continued to inspect the food, which was the same shade of green as herself, mumbling about how it was not brightly colored, nor shaped like a dinosaur. She eventually came to a realization, and once she did, it wasn't pretty.

"Hold on guys, it's broccoli!" Disgust exclaimed, clicking the button as a disgusting substance came to her mouth.

This caused Riley to openly dislike the broccoli, and spit it out on her father.

"Yucky!" she said.

"Well, I just saved our lives," Disgust said inside of Riley's head, grinning.

The others sighed in relief, with Fear especially happy since he was always worried about Riley being poisoned. Her father, however, didn't look too happy about this.

"Riley, if you don't eat your dinner, you're not going to get any desert," Riley's father told her strictly.

Riley's Anger, sitting on his couch and reading the newspaper, suddenly looked up with surprise and anger.

 _Anger… he helps make things fair for Riley. His anger gets a little out of control sometimes, but at least he doesn't jump if someone says something a little too loudly._

"Wait, did he just say we couldn't have desert?"

The fiery emotion threw down his newspaper, walking over to the controls, as the others moved away from him. He had been there long enough for them to know and recognize his temper.

"So, that's how you wanna play it, old man?" Riley's Anger yelled, prepared to take care of things. "No dessert? Oh, sure! We'll eat our dinner!"

Around a millisecond later, the toddler's Anger came into action at the controls, causing her to scream at her father. She continued doing so until Riley's father came up with the idea to distract her.

"Riley, Riley," her father said, putting up the spoon. "Here comes an airplane…"

This, as he had expected, calmed his daughter down, and it had done so with her emotions, as well.

"Oh, airplane," Anger stated calmly. "We got an airplane, everybody."

They all walked closer to stare at this in admiration. Even Fear was not freaking out, which Joy was, once again, grateful for.

 _At least he's not scared right now, which makes the moment all the more better._

Soon, it was the end of the day, in which Fear and Joy were staring up at the screen together.

 _And I've met Fear._

She stared at the emotion with annoyance.

 _He… well… he… I'm not actually sure what he does. And I've checked. There's no place for him to go._

She flashed a fake smile at him, to which he just stared at her with a raised eyebrow.

 _He's good. We're good. It's all great._

As she had expected, the purple emotion left the room, leaving Joy to herself. At this, she was happier, truthfully glad to be rid of Fear for now, even if she refused to admit it to anyone else. She ran over to the row of memories.

 _Anyway. These are Riley's memories._

The emotion walked down the aisle of memories, continuing to stare at them with admiration.

 _And luckily, they're mostly happy… not to brag._

Joy picked up one of her favorite joyous memories; it was one in which Riley was a little girl, and she was playing on the playground with her best friend, Meg. They were having a lot of fun that day. After the memory finished, Joy re-played it. She was always happy to re-watch Riley's memories, mainly the joyous ones. With glee, she hugged the memory before putting it back down the aisle with numerous other memories.

Spotting the ones that she was most fond of, Joy ran over to them.

 _But the real important ones are over here, though._

She continued walking around, before she saw what held Riley's most important memories. Opening it, she watched with pure happiness as it came back up.

 _I don't wanna get too technical, but these are called core memories. Each one came from a super important time in Riley's life, like when she first scored a goal._

After thinking this, Joy picked up that certain memory.

 _That was so amazing!_

Joy smiled as the memory played. She watched with glee as a younger, smaller, Riley was standing there with her parents, attempting to score a goal as they watched.

When she finally did, they were proud of her.

"Hey-hey, would you look at that," Riley's father said with glee as the toddler giggled.

"Yay!" Riley's emotions exclaimed before they heard the memory.

As the memory formed, they all watched with amazement as it ran down. Even though they had seen it happen a few times before, that never stopped it from being just as amazing each time.

By the time that it had finished, the bright yellow memory formed an island.

 _And each core memory powers a different aspect of Riley's personality._

The emotions ran over to see all of the islands.

 _Like Hockey Island!_

For Riley's Hockey Island, there was the sound of cheering.

Joy grinned at Goofball Island.

 _Goofball Island is my personal favorite._

The memory that powered Goofball was a memory from when Riley was a baby, and had been running around, naked, with her underwear on her head.

"Come back here, you little monkey!" Riley's father called as she ran through their house.

Once he had caught her, she was standing on the couch, giggling as she did some rather hilarious actions.

 _Yup. Goofball is the best._

They walked over to Friendship Island, getting a peek at that.

 _Friendship Island is pretty good, too._

Indeed, Friendship Island was wonderful.

Joy and the others ran over to Honesty Island.

 _Oh! I love Honesty Island. And that's the truth._

Surprisingly, Honesty Island was powered by a yellow core memory, which was also from Riley's years as a baby. The memory was of Riley frowning as she held up a hammer, admitting that she had broken something.

 _And of course, Family Island is amazing._

The core memory that powered 'Family Island' was one from which Riley was a toddler, and had told her father that she had found herself a puzzle, before putting it on his nose as she and her mother giggled.

 _The point is, the islands are what make Riley, Riley._

A montage of the years throughout Riley's life went through, ending with Riley saying goodnight to her father.

"Goodnight, kiddo," Riley's father said to her.

"Goodnight, dad," Riley responded with a slight smile.

Inside of Riley's head, her Joy was once again pleased to see that the day had gone so well.

"Woo!" Joy exclaimed. "Another perfect day! That's what I'm talking about! Nice job, everybody! Let's get those memories down to Long Term!"

Sadness, a small smile on her face, commented on the day, as well.

"Nothing all that sad happened to us today," Sadness noted. "It was all successful."

 _And, that's it. We love our girl. She's got great friends and a great house. After all, Riley is eleven now. What could happen?_

 **And, that's the end of this chapter!**

 **Hehe, Joy, you're going to see what could happen in the next chapter for sure!**

 **The cover art for this story belongs to PuccaFanGirl from Deviantart. I thank them for allowing me to use this picture for this story.**

 **By the way, at the time that I am writing this, the amount of reviews, favorites, and follows have gone higher, so thank you so much!**


	3. Chapter 3

Author's note: Goodness gracious, I haven't updated this in months! To start, I apologize to everyone who's been waiting. It's nearly April, and I'm ashamed to be updating nearly a full six months after uplaoding the second chapter. I started spring break on Friday, and since it'll be the thirtieth by the time that I upload this, at least in my timezone (it's 11:45 where I live,) I'm going to say that I'm proud to be uploading this on the second to last day of March!

Disclaimer: I do not own any characters in this story. They belong to Disney/Pixar, and I am just a fan of the movie who is writing fanfiction.

III

Joy had later found out that her statement had been completely wrong. She only fully realized this once their house had been sold and they were in the car of Riley's parents.

"Wha…?" Joy said, shocked that things had happened so quickly.

"Aigh!" The other emotions screamed.

The back of the car closed.

"Huh?" Joy asked.

 _Why is this all happening so fast?_

The other emotions let out another scream of shock.

The moving van finally drove away, and that was when they let out their loudest scream.

 _Not what I had in mind._

While she was still just as surprised as the other emotions, she tried to turn it into a pleasant thing; once they'd passed the Golden Gate Bridge, she immediately pointed it out.

"Hey, there's the Golden Gate Bridge!" She acknowledged. "It's not made of solid gold like we thought, which is kind of a disappointment, but still!"

As they passed the Ferry Building, Fear breathed a sigh of relief.

"I'm glad that you told me that earthquakes are a myth, Joy," Fear said. "Now I have nothing to worry about!" The other emotions stared at Joy with confusion.

"Uh… yeah," Joy said, faking a smile.

 _I don't know how long I'll be able to keep that one up._

They eventually became stuck in traffic, to which Anger began shouting.

"These are my kinds of people!" He shouted.

"Just a few more blocks till we're at our new house," Riley's father said with a smile.

"Step on it, daddy!" Anger yelled once the stoplight turned green.

As they continued driving, Disgust began to get annoyed about how long they'd been sitting inside of the car.

"We might as well live in this smelly car," she said, her nose held high up in the air. "We've already been in it forever."

"Which was actually really lucky because that gives us enough time to wonder what our new house might look like!" Joy exclaimed. "Let's review the top five daydreams!"

One of the five daydreams that Joy held up showed a home that was a spa.

"I can't find anything sad about that," Sadness said, nearly smiling.

"I agree, Sadness!" Joy said, until she saw another. "Oh wait, no, no, _this_ is definitely the one." She showed a gingerbread house.

"Ugh, Joy, for the last time, we will never live in a cookie," Disgust told her.

"Well… okay then, what about this one?" Joy asked. A castle appeared.

"That's the one!" Anger exclaimed. "It comes with a dragon!"

"We're getting close," Joy said with a large smile. The other emotions could feel the anticipation. "I can feel it!" She gave the others her largest smile yet. "Here it is!"

The car finally stopped. Riley, feeling ecstatic, hopped out. The smile on her face dropped a bit once she saw what the house actually was on the outside: boring and non-colorful. It was nothing like her daydreams had been. The emotions themselves were shocked.

"Maybe it looks nice on the inside?" Joy suggested. Once Riley stepped inside of the house, they all saw that she was wrong.

The house on the inside was just as ugly as the house had been on the outside.

"We're supposed to live here?" Anger asked, growing more and more upset by the second.

"Why would our parents do this to us?" Sadness asked. " _How_ could our parents do this to us?"

"It smells like something died in here," Disgust complained. A disgusted memory rolled in.

"We're gonna die," Sadness whined.

"Everybody's overreacting, nobody's gonna" -

"A dead mouse!" Disgust interrupted, shrieking. They all looked to see that yes, there was a dead mouse in the corner. "I'm gonna be sick!"

"Great," Anger said, gritting his teeth, "this is just great!"

"We're gonna get rabies!" Fear screamed. He jumped into Anger's arms, only for him to catch fire thanks to the flames coming from Anger's head.

"Get offa me!" Anger screamed. Joy, though often annoyed by Fear, still was not evil nor sadistic, and therefore grabbed the fire extinguisher.

"Hey, guys, remember how dad told us about how cool our room will look?" Joy asked them. "Let's go check it out."

"Yeah!" Anger and Disgust shouted, smiling.

"That'll be a lot less depressing," Sadness noted. However, just as Joy had been wrong about many things, Sadness was wrong about it being less depressing. If anything, the way that their room looked was even _more_ depressing than how their house had looked, mainly because their father had gotten their hopes up.

"Why," Sadness complained, her eyes filling up with tears.

"I'm starting to envy the dead mouse," Disgust stated, exasperated by now.

"We can't live here," Fear insisted.

"He's right," Sadness agreed.

"It's the worst thing that I've ever seen,"

"Well, hey, it can't be anything that butterfly curtains won't fix," Joy claimed.

"Where'd you read that?" Anger asked, deadpan.

"It doesn't matter, I read it and it's true," Joy stated. She projected an imagination of Riley's future room. "Bed can go right there,

"Our trophy collection can go there," Disgust said, pointing to a spot on their desk.

"Chair can go there," Anger said, pointing to the place behind their desk.

"Stars on the wall sounds good," Fear said, nearly cracking a smile.

"Posters sound pretty good," Sadness stated.

 _Good. They're all being more optimistic. That's great! Fantastic!_

"Now we're talking!" Joy exclaimed, finally happy. "Let's go get our stuff from the moving van!"

"I don't think this'll go well," Sadness said.

"I agree," Fear stated. "Just take a look at what's happened so far! We found a dead mouse, the house isn't fun, and I bet that we'll see something really scary when we go down there!" Joy quietly groaned.

 _Why do they all have to complain so much? Sure, it's… kinda gross, but we aren't going to die or anything. Today might be a bad day, but we'll get over it. We always do._

 **And… that ends it! We'll see Riley's parents argue as the story continues, and eventually, we'll get to the main conflict of the story: Joy and Fear have to go through Headquarters. I'm glad to have finally updated this, since I know that a lot of you have been waiting for an update and I really do owe it to you.**

 **I also know that some of you still want Joy and Fear as a couple, and to be honest… I'm starting to fall in love with the idea of Starnerve, so it might happen! Not confirming anything, but it's a maybe.**


End file.
